(offbeat motivating music)
- Hey, what's up?
MKBHD here, and this is the all new
Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra,
freshly announced today,
and I got some hands on time with this new flagship.
And, you know, it's funny,
we haven't had a new Samsung Galaxy Note
in two years since the Note 20 in 2020.
And so since then, we've had all these questions like, oh,
is Samsung killing the Galaxy Note?
Are they done with that line?
Is it over?
But I have a theory.
This is a Galaxy Note.
Now, obviously not by name.
We're still calling this an S22 Ultra,
but clearly, you know, Samsung is looking
for a little bit more of a way to differentiate the Ultra
from the rest of the Galaxy S lineup,
and a reason to justify this $1200 starting price.
So, honestly, I wouldn't really be surprised
if Samsung did behind the scenes
actually make an S22 Ultra and a Note 22 Ultra
and then look at them side by side and like, yeah,
there's not really enough differentiating these here,
and then just booted the S22 Ultra
and kept the Note 22 Ultra
and slotted it in at the top of the lineup,
but changed the name.
So yes, the phone I'm about to show you
is called the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
But yeah, the Note is back.
So I picked this phone up and held it for the first time,
and immediately all the memories
of previous Galaxy Notes come back.
Now like I said, this slots in right above
the Galaxy S22 and S22+.
I also have a video about those two new phones dropping
at the same time as this one.
So if you're interested in those,
definitely check that out, link below the Like button.
But yeah, this is the top of that lineup.
So the new design that was rumored is real.
The materials feel familiar.
You've got metal and Gorilla Glass Victus+,
you know, the flat top and bottom,
the whole thing is IP68 certified.
And then the shape,
well, this is the exact specific shape
of the Galaxy Notes of the past,
just with a satin back now
and the new camera layout.
The satin back I love,
seems like the word Ultra is associated
with a satin or matte non-glossy back,
and I'm all about that.
And of course, low key,
while I of course love the matte black,
I think the white one here will show
the fewest fingerprints if you can keep it clean.
But the cameras are the weird-looking part, for sure.
There is no big camera bump,
no shelf on the corner like the S21 Ultra,
just individual camera rings
that each protrude out the same amount from that flat back.
And the camera rings are shiny
and they actually match the rails
of the phone for each color.
Look, I don't think it looks that great.
It looked pretty basic to me in the renders,
and it still does.
But honestly, most other phones' camera bumps
look pretty lame too.
Maybe this one looks a little dumber with a case on it
because you have to draw around the camera cutouts
and then it looks like the letter P shape kinda.
Meh, I don't know.
It's a good thing you don't have to look
at the back of your phone all the time.
You can get a case you like or somethin' like that.
It's just a bummer
because the S21 series all looked so much better.
And the S22 and S22+
both still have this better looking
corner camera bump design.
Anyway, the display up front
on the Ultra appears to be everything you'd expect.
I think we kind of take it for granted a little bit
at this point, because they are consistently some
of the absolute best displays on any phone.
Seems like that's again what we're lookin' at here.
6.8 inches corner to corner, 1440p resolution,
120 hertz max refresh rate,
and this is an LTPO 2.0 display now.
So the refresh rate can modulate all the way down
to one hertz when not much is happening
for an even better mix of efficiency and responsiveness.
Also, I was able to turn on Adaptive Refresh Rate Mode
and 1440p resolution at the same time,
so that's good.
You know, we know it'll kill your battery,
but hey, you pay for a lot of those pixels,
so you might as well be able to use 'em all.
But yeah, this appears
to be the world class display we expect, again.
The selfie camera cutout is still top center,
not taking too many risks
by putting it underneath the display.
And the ultrasonic fingerprint reader
is still in this same spot, same size.
And you've got that little curve
on each side of the screen.
The smaller S22s are completely flat,
and I prefer that.
This one curves over the edges
a little bit into the side rails
just like the other Notes.
You can see the little ultra-wide band cutout
on the rail under the power and volume buttons.
And then of course, the biggest new feature
of the S22 Ultra is a feature
that came from the old Notes,
which is the built in stylus, the S Pen.
Like I said, it's a Note.
So the beloved built-in stylus returns
to the bottom corner of the phone,
pops in and out reversibly, it has all the software.
The screen off notes, the super low latency,
everything that people loved about the S Pen before,
it's all still here.
And it's also funny,
this year, the S Pens are all black
no matter what color phone you get,
but just the cap of the pen
will match the color of the rails,
which also matches the color of the camera rings.
It really feels like this phone just picks up
right where the old Notes left off,
because other than the name,
basically does exactly that.
Also, you might have noticed
that I haven't even gotten
to the specs yet,
but they're exactly what you'd expect
as a spec bump from those older Notes.
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chip,
and it's gonna have the Exynos versions
in certain regions again,
but it's a new four-nanometer chip.
And then, every spec other
than the baseline version has 12 gigs of RAM.
So it'll start at eight,
but then every single other one
up to one terabyte of storage will have 12 gigs of RAM,
so you can spec it up to that high.
Sounds expensive,
but you can go that high if you want to.
The battery stays at the 5,000 milliamp hours,
which is impressive given there's now
a cutout inside for the S Pen,
and there's 45-watt fast charging
in the Ultra and the S22+, but not in the regular.
No charger in the box,
but it'll support that fast charging
if you give it enough juice.
That's like 50% charge added
in 20 minutes of being plugged in.
And these cameras are interesting.
They're not bumped up so much in the hardware department,
but there sure are a lot of new software features.
So you're still lookin' at quad cameras,
the 108 megapixel main camera,
the ultra-wide, a 3X telephoto, and a 10X telephoto.
But then in the software, there's a bunch of stuff.
There's a new Nona Binning Mode
for high resolution nighttime photography.
It'll combine the brightness of binned photos
with the detail of the 108-megapixel Mode.
And there's an improved Pro Mode with new RAW formats.
They're doing AI stereo depth mapping
for better portrait mode photos,
and also just playing around
with the extremely limited time I had with hands on,
it feels like the 100X space zoom
has even more improved stabilization
that tries to kinda lock onto subjects,
presumably something contrast-based from what I can tell.
There's a lot of stuff I gotta test on here,
especially in the camera department
to see if it's actually better
or more improved than last year,
but that should all be in the full review.
So for sure, make sure you get subscribed
to be among the first to see
that full review when it does come out.
But yeah, I think we're are pretty much all
on the same page.
I am very pumped to test long term,
the Note 20, or S22 Ultra and all of its new features.
Let me know in the comment section below
what you wanna know about.
I mean, there's a bunch of interesting stuff.
The battery of course is still huge.
Maybe it's One UI 4.1, maybe it's the new camera features.
Maybe it's the stylus stuff.
Let me know.
I'll be hangin' out down there to figure it out,
and the full review will be comin' up soon.
Until then, make sure you check out the S22
and S22+ video if you're interested in those as well.
And that's basically it.
Thanks for watchin'.
Catch you guys in the next one.
Peace.
(offbeat uplifting music)